About me...

I am a 2004 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I was a Journalism and Mass Communications major and an Information Systems minor. I entered the teaching field in 2006 after I had tried my hand at business ownership. I was a lateral entry teacher and finally cleared my license in July of 2010. I teach at Hobbton High School in Sampson County, North Carolina.I enjoy working with new technologies, especially in video. I own a video production company called Serendipity Productions.So, my background is in electronic communications with focuses in visual media. I try to bring all of these elements into my classroom, but find that access to technology is difficult. Our school has little resources and has only recently received mobile laptop computers. Many of our students do not have computer and/or internet access from home.Through this class, I hope to find effective and efficient ways to reach students through electronic communications in order to teach literacy in a way that appeals to them more.

Expository Writing

#1: "The King's Head Demystified"

I collaborated with a group of four people, Taylor Blanton, Jane Shipman, Michael Cook, and Kevin Barham, during our "pub walk" experience. We chose to complete a slideshow with accompanying voiceovers of detailed descriptions for the pub as well as appropriate background music. For my part of the assignment, I produced and edited the video.

You may be interested in seeing an original documentary by a Japanese group. Due to copyright restrictions, we could not include it with our video, but you can view it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyiAiHly9oU

On the evening of July 30th, 2011, five companions set out on a journey that would eventually take them places they had never planned to see. During the train ride, the group had to suffer through songs like “I’m A Barbie Girl” and “Like A Virgin” sung by a drunken group of young ladies. Upon their exiting the train, the other passengers sang “Na, na, na, na... Na, na, na, na... Hey, hey, hey... goodbye” to celebrate their departure.

Next, the group, which included Jane, Sara, Taylor, Mike, and Kevin, disembarked in Edinburgh and asked for directions to Brodie’s Hostel. The kind Scottish gentleman informed them to avoid the “f***load of stairs” and to take the next street up instead. They checked into the hostel, then headed to the nearest pub, the Albanach, where their journey began.

Sara found a handy brochure advertising fourteen popular pubs around town. The game was to visit ten of the pubs, drink, and score a stamp. Once accomplished, they would receive a free t-shirt. If all fourteen pubs were frequented, they would receive an additional flask of whiskey. The group decided to map out the ten closest pubs and begin early the next morning. After a round of pints, they sauntered back to the hostel for an uneasy sleep in a hot room.

On the morning of July 31st, 2011, the group prepared for their activities with cups of coffee and tee and the “Braveheart Breakfast” at their first pub location, the World’s End. The platter was a Scottish tradition of black pudding, haggis, toast (no jam), sausage (no taste), baked beans, poached egg, bacon (country ham), baked tomato, and mushrooms. Then, they set out on High Street towards Holyrood Palace. Unfortunately, there would be no sightseeing there, as Prince Andrew’s daughter Zara was getting married to rugby player Mike Tillman. So, they continued on to Holyrood Park, at which is located the extinct volcano. They traveled past parliament, down the Royal Mile and Canongate, then past Salisbury Crags and onto Queen’s Drive. Because it was Sunday, Sara insisted they visit church, so they stepped into St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church where a fat cat had taken up residence.

After short prayers (no confession on Sundays), the five went to Siglo on Cowgate but it was closed, as most burlesque clubs are on Sunday, and they replaced this pub with the Advocate at Hunter’s Square. The next stop was Drouthy Neebors, which the group thought was Grouchy Neebors, because of the Celtic spelling. Jane put on her charm and got a free half pint glass from the shaggy-haired young barkeep. Mostly, the bar was made up of older men watching a soccer match.

Next, they sought out Swany’s on Ratecliff Terrace where Jane almost got the group kicked out because she took her pint glass outside of the premises, which is against the law in Scotland. After a couple hours of walking, Sara insisted that the group take a taxi to the next pub, but Taylor the tour guide Blanton would not hear of it. So, on the way to the White Hart Inn pub, the five tried to visit the castle, but because of the late hour, there was not time to do the full two-hour tour. Sara insisted that they would have had the time if they had taken the cab ride. At the White Hart, Jane talked up the barkeep called Dan who suggested the group climb King Authur’s Seat, otherwise known as the volcano. The group ate dinner, then revisited Siglo, but the pub was still closed.

That evening, after a bit of window shopping and coffee at Starbucks, four of the five group members, Sara, Taylor, Mike, and Kevin, signed up for the haunted tour from nine o’clock to ten-fifteen. The tour, like most ghost tours, lacked originality, but did provide a bit of historical background. Sara is still skeptical of ghosts and spirits. When the group rejoined Jane at the hostel, they planned the next day’s trail to finish the pub crawl. As an aside, someone stopped up the toilet in the hostel. The person may or may not have been in that group and may or may not have been female.

On the morning of August 1st, 2011, the five companions walked, and walked, and walked, and then they walked some more, until they arrived at Pivo’s which happened to be closed that morning. So, they tried finding it’s substitute, Blackbull, but to no avail. This lead the almost-desparate group closer to the coast, seeking the other pubs. Unfortunately, the pub crawl map was not drawn to scale, probably on purpose by the trail designer so that ignorant tourists would try to visit these far away pubs.

On the way to the next pub, Jane met a stepping stone that was two centimeters taller than its neighbor, and she became a linebacker for the American Tourist Team out to sack the Tesco Express team’s sign. When they picked her up off the ground, she fared better than the sign, which is still leaning at a seventy-five degree angle. To add to this adversity, Sara was almost pick-pocketed by a seemingly junkie who saw Mike’s Sudafed in her outer mesh pocket and tried to take it. As Mike describes it, she “held her own” in reacting to the thief. The group finally found the coast, visited the pub Waterline, then to Cameo Bar where they ate lunch. Afterwards, they walked out next to the water’s edge where the lighthouse was located for a much needed break and photo opportunity.

Starbank was the last stop on the coast, where, yet again, Jane received a free pint glass, but this time, Taylor asked for one as well. He received a “Timothy Taylor” pint glass as well as a bar towel with the same ensign, which reflects both his name as well as his father’s.

At last, the group sought out Blackbull again, but with success this time, and received their final stamp at a rock-n-roll, heavy metal sort of establishment. They returned to the Albanach, the origin of the journey, to eat dinner and collect their much-awaited prize, the red t-shirt.

At the end of their journey, Taylor was dubbed the ‘GPS’ or the “Group Positioning System,” and Sara will forever resent him for not allowing the cab ride when they had a chance.

#3: Postcard Poem

As a note, I bought a DVD with photos, video, and music of Winchester Cathedral, which was simply packaged as a postcard. Therefore, I thought of my former piano instructor who is now our technology director at the county level, and I wrote this poem on the postcard and sent it to her. It served two purposes: music and digital media. She emailed me saying she loved it!

Expressive Writing

#1: Impressions of England using Glogster

To reflect on my impressions of England, I must start from the beginning. On day one, Sunday, July 24th, we toured downtown Guilford, mostly because we had to do something to keep moving and stay awake. Therefore, the journalist in me must report the things I saw:

Fire Starts in Guilford!Thanks to the in-depth reporting of Ms. Kashetta Henderson, we have eyewitness accounts of the fire which occurred on July 24th, 2011 in downtown Guilford. Kashetta reported about the three firetrucks which responded to the call at a location only meters away from where we were standing. The building did not look occupied, but the firefighters busted down the front door to check if there were any residents. The responders also taped off the area so that cars and foot traffic would not pass into harm’s way. Unfortunately, we were unable to follow up as to the cause of the fire and estimated damages, but we can safely assume the Guilford fire department did their job well.

Inebriated Man Almost Falls!At approximately one o’clock in the afternoon, a group of us were traveling down High Street when we spotted an intoxicated man stumbling along, with his dear friend keeping him from falling down. Even thought the video is a bit shaky (due to the fact that I was silently laughing hysterically) you can still see how inebriated this gentleman was. What made it worse was that it was in the early afternoon. Suffice it to say, unsuspecting American tourists were surprised to see this on a peaceful Sunday afternoon.

Impromptu Singing in the Square!Ms. Kim Crutcher celebrated her birthday, unexpectedly, in the square in downtown Guilford as the crowd around her broke into the “Happy Birthday” song in honor of her day. This happened after the group witnessed two locals placing cupcakes on the brick walls in the square. Skeptical of the cupcakes, Kim did not eat her self-proclaimed prize, but did place a used cigarette filter in the cupcake’s center in lieu of a candle. She then pretended to blow it out once the group finished singing, as is tradition.

#2: Spontaneous Memory Monologue(View movie while reading)

With her earbuds in, listening to Paper Tongue’s “Strongest Flame,” she sees gray twilight on the green horizon. There is just enough light to see the glorious landscape, but her camera can’t capture anything but the reflection of glass in the train’s windows. She thinks how much she’d like to share this with her family. She hasn’t seen her mom and dad since June 25th.

At the moment they cross the border from England to Scotland, a quick cheer runs through her mind; one more check off her bucket list. This list grows longer each day as she sees things others do that she envies. It seems her mind just can’t settle for anything but constant activity. But, it hasn’t always been this way. As the lull of the train’s forward movements and the change from Paper Tongues to Goo Goo Dolls sparks her innermost thoughts, she looks back in time when there was no list.

The feelings are still raw. That period of her life was glacial, moving so slowly that it didn’t seem to move at all. And there were no hopes or dreams or wishes. People would ask, what it was. But, there was no defining it, no explanation. There was no true beginning because it had always been there, lurking underneath. It could be compared to a dream of the subconscious that suddenly reveals itself at the body’s weakest point. During this time in her life, memory fails her because it is too painful to remember.

And like a dream, she awakes. But, she can’t turn back now; this train is one way, literally. She has a flight booked to return. So, in this leg of her journey, she must accept things as they are. It’s almost a metaphor for her entire life. Dead-end roads and detours. For the last four years, these paths have almost meant head-on collisions... D.O.A. But he kept that from happening. Remember, nothing is final. You can always change your mind. It’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t work out.